


break point (where we wash ashore)

by presumenothing (justjoy)



Series: fma fics [10]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Canon Compliant, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27323635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justjoy/pseuds/presumenothing
Summary: “I’m back!” Ed calls out as he fumbles the apartment keys back into his coat pocket, still halfway preoccupied with some of the less-than-pleasant news he’d heard on the street, and then he looks up and just— freezes.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Edward Elric & Noah
Series: fma fics [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882300
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43





	break point (where we wash ashore)

**Author's Note:**

> more cos fic? more cos fic.
> 
> (tw for what basically amounts to a panic attack i guess)

It happens on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon, not too long after they end up in America.

“I’m back!” Ed calls out as he fumbles the apartment keys back into his coat pocket, still halfway preoccupied with some of the less-than-pleasant news he’d heard on the street, and then he looks up and just— freezes.

There’s no other word for the way his mind jerks to a sudden stop. For how the air cuts short in his lungs so abruptly that it _must_ have been audible to everyone else, judging by the way Al approaches with eyes wide and concerned, mouthing words Ed can’t make out over the deafening silence in his ears.

Except the sight of his brother only serves to make everything _worse_ , for once.

Never mind that Al’s eyes are a different colour and his hair the wrong length besides; never mind that Ed now knows that Alfons’ symptoms had likely been a byproduct of rocket fumes instead of some improbable inheritance of Mom’s illness, or that it hadn’t even been what killed him in the end. Never mind that the tinny words of the radio slowly filtering back into hearing are not in German but English, patterned differently to what he’d heard in London and yet different again to its closest parallel in Amestris.

Ed looks at Al, and _doesn’t see him_.

“Are you–” _okay_ , Al tries to ask except that Ed thrusts a hand blindly out to stop him because _no_ he isn’t, he’s stuck back in their apartment in Munich feeling absolutely fucking useless as he watches Alfons cough his life away and the overlap is so viscerally dizzying that Ed almost chokes on the nausea of it.

His bag thuds painfully into his shin as he stumbles back against the wall. The only reason he hadn’t already dropped it is forgetting that he’d even been holding it in the first place.

Al is here, he’s alive, and no matter how much they might look alike he won’t end up like Alfons did because Ed _won’t let him._

And now if he could convince his brain of that it would be just bloody excellent.

He blinks, or maybe the world goes away for a while, and when it comes back Noah is the only one left in the room.

Al’s nowhere in sight. Ed hates how that makes it easier to wrest the runaway thoughts under control again, even as it causes the baseline worry he always carries to ramp up a notch. 

“Where…?” he clears his throat, wincing at the scratchy edge to his voice. “Where’s Al?”

Noah nods at the half-open window, curtain fluttering in the breeze. “He went out the fire escape. Said to shout if you needed him.”

Great. So Ed had managed to scare Al up to the roof because he couldn’t help seeing a dead person in the place of his brother.

Noah’s not touching him at all, hands held away in a conscious stillness that Ed’s grateful for, because _he_ barely wants to be in his own head right now let alone adding her to that mess.

But that also means he must’ve either said that last thought aloud, or it’s just obvious enough from his face anyway because Noah exhales softly. “He wasn’t scared of you, Ed. Scared _for_ you, yes.”

“Like that’s much better.” Ed drags a hand across his face, the automail a groundingly familiar chill even through the fabric – dammit, he hadn’t even had time to remove his coat or gloves before having whatever the hell this breakdown had been. " _I_ shouldn’t be having any trouble telling them apart, of all people.”

“And you of all people should know it’s not always that easy.” Noah counters. “Al told you about the dreams he had back in the world you came from, didn’t he?”

“Yeah.” It’d been one of the earliest things Al had told him, actually, if only because it’d come out from the way Al had reacted to their apartment with almost more familiarity than surprise.

(Which isn’t to say that Ed had taken it well at all; between that and the ease with which Al had attached bits of his soul to those suits of armour, Ed had been convinced that he’d brought Al back _wrong_ somehow. The thought had scared him at the time and it still scares him now.

He can’t lose Al again. Ed’s not sure if there’d be anything left of him if he did.)

“Alfons was here. Al knows how real he was to you,” Noah says, and if she notices the way Ed stiffens at the words she doesn’t comment on it. “He’ll understand.”

Ed swallows back _and what if I don’t want him to?_ because it’s not useful regardless of how selfishly true it is. He’s already made Al lose him more than once, whether of his own choice or not, and he doesn’t want Al to understand what it would mean to lose someone permanently the way he’d lost Alfons, where even tearing a hole between worlds wouldn’t get them back.

At least with Mom, there’d been alchemy. For all that it’d been arrogant and foolish, the worst mistake in their lives, for all that it’d made Sloth – there had at least been that.

If he were to lose Al in this world…

The thought leaves him teetering at the edge of a bottomless abyss except that he’s already thoroughly exhausted from the first go-around, to the point where he doesn’t startle when Al reappears in his field of vision even though he hadn’t heard him come back in.

Al doesn’t bother with looking pitying or hesitant or anything, because it’s _Al_ and there’ll never be anyone else who knows Ed better, even if they’d had to relearn the ropes along the way.

Noah gets up and goes back to making dinner, because she’s really the most functional one among them, while Al nudges Ed over until he’s got enough space to flop down next to Ed.

So now they’re _both_ sitting just inside their front door like a pair of weirdos. This day just keeps getting better.

Al leans against him. “Hey.”

It’s not a question, which saves Ed having to lie about the answer.

“Sorry,” he mutters, and leaves it there, because _sorry I’m such a mess_ just feels like stating the obvious.

“Idiot brother,” Al grumbles. “But you’re _my_ idiot brother. I’m not going anywhere except where you’re going, okay?”

If only this were something that could be solved so easily.

But then again, Al probably knows that too, so Ed lets himself lean back a little and nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> #al: or i could always dye my hair? hey ed how do you feel about hot pink
> 
> (come yell with me on [tumblr](https://presumenothing.tumblr.com/), btw)


End file.
